A semiconductor device, MEMS, and the like have been increasingly demanded to reduce the size, and, under the circumstances, a photo-nanoimprinting technique has drawn attention.
According to the photo-nanoimprinting technique, a photocurable composition (resist) is cured in a state where a mold (pattern) on the surface of which a fine irregular pattern is formed is pressed against a substrate (wafer) to which the photocurable composition is applied. Thus, the irregular pattern of the mold is transferred to a cured product of the photocurable composition, and then the pattern is formed on the substrate. According to the photo-nanoimprinting technique, a fine structure of a several nanometer order can be formed on a substrate.
According to the photo-nanoimprinting technique, a resist is first applied to a pattern formation region on a substrate (disposing process). Next, the resist is molded using a mold on which a pattern is formed (pattern contact process). Then, light is emitted to cure the resist (light irradiation process), and then the resist is released (mold release process). By carrying out these processes, the pattern (photocured film) of resin having a predetermined shape is formed on the substrate.
The cured product pattern formed on the substrate by the photo-nanoimprinting technique may be utilized as a mask in processing a ground substrate using a dry etching technique. In this case, in order to process the ground substrate with a good yield, the photocurable composition has been demanded to have high dry etching resistance.
The dry etching resistance of the photocurable composition is dominantly determined by a polymerizable compound composition in the photocurable composition. On the other hand, the viscosity of the photocurable composition is also dominantly determined by the polymerizable compound composition of the photocurable composition.
When the viscosity of the photocurable composition is high, the speed at which the composition spreads on the substrate after applying the composition onto the substrate and the speed at which the composition is charged into concave portions of a fine pattern formed on a mold after bringing the composition into contact with the mold are low. Therefore, when the viscosity of the photocurable composition is high, the charging speed of the composition is low and also the productivity in forming a cured product pattern by the photo-nanoimprinting technique is low.